“But, officer, they’re not bloodshot. It’s a, uh, …. occupational hazard?”

Enjoy and please check out Torrey Pines paragliding. You will fly tandem and glide over those beautiful cliffs. It is breathtaking. Also check out the harbor seals at Children’s Beach nearby.

What a great place to want to get healthy and enjoy life.

One key point Obama said all along is that *all of us* have to work to rebuild this country. The person who blamed Clinton spending more than we make does not know American history. Reagonomics, aka “Supply Side Economic” or “Voodoo Economics” is a root cause of this mess. Ever since Reagon proclaimed that we can spend more than we take in we have had problems with deficits and with a public falling for the same line of nonsense. Reagan was also the beginning of the end of investing in our infrastructure, throwing disabled and mentally ill out onto the streets, and the enormous rise in homelessness. Yet Reagan is still the hero to the now totally discredited Republicans.

Bill Clinton actually balanced the worst deficit ever, prior to Bush, and that was from Reagon and “daddy Bush” who followed the same mantra, despite him labeling Reagonomics Voodoo Economics.

GW Bush destroyed our position in the world and spent like a spoiled little rich kid (hmm I wonder why?). Now he has us in 2 wars that he totally bumbled and he has decimated the economy.

The public drank the cool-aid from Bush and modern Republicans and went on a spending spree too. Of course, many borrowed on their houses since the average wage never went up. Only that went to the richest Americans.

It is time that we start to care about *all* people, Americans and otherwise. We have to stop being the gluttons and bullies of the world. Obama understands that.

Obama also wants to bring *thinking* and education back to America. What a concept! I am so proud of the American people for electing Obama, this Jersey boy too is excited about pitching in and helping to restore America to what it can and should be.

Sorry for such a long post but some of the responses have been so ignorant that I felt compelled to respond.

Thanks so much for making this site free. I hope to one day be able to contribute to it.

gank edit: I love capitalism, but I think that we need to be more responsible as a society. Too many Americans are homeless and hungry, and in my opinion, none should be. Every American should be guaranteed the basic necessities of life(shelter, food, and clean water), regardless of the circumstances that got them to that point.

The problem is, Bush SPENT more than every other president before him… combined! Ask yourself, how is that “conservative”? Free market capitalism? HA! the previous administration is about as capitalistic as Hugo Chavez. Actually, Hugo doesn’t even bail out banks, so there’s definately some truth to when Hugo laughed calling bush his “comrade” for being more leftist than he on that issue.

The problem is, we haven’t had a true conservative since maybe Dwight D Eisenhower, whom e had the greatst surplus under. Ever since then we’ve had president after another mismanaging money and power.

The government has almost fallen over itself to pledge $8.5 trillion or so in loans, bailouts and guarantees. Most of which is heading straight to the financial sector.

According James Bianco of Bianco Research, this amount dwarfs other massive government spending programs in the last century, even adjusted for inflation.

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

And we want to spend well over TWICE that amount. All while our nation is hemmoraging money and jobs and global growth is slowing, and we are coming to the realization that we can’t grow forever.

With that being said, I greatly admire Obama’s leadership, I think he’s done well to gather a great ecconomic team, and the confidence people seem to have in him, even if I think he’s going even more left, as everyone elects him thinking he’s the solution. I think we need to return to Thomas Jefferson politics, where the president has very limited power, each state is very unique and there are extremely limited federal laws and control, but the states have a lot more control. Unfortunately Bush has given the president MUCH more control, the government has grown astronomically, and they suck at managing money.

If the government was a poker player, they’d be equivilent to someone borrowing as much as they could, playing at the highest limits possible against the toughest competition, before they even learn what a flush is.

Ron Paul is about the best choice we could have made… if we elected him 25 years ago! He understands what pain we’ve caused with our imperialistic foreign policy, which I believe Obama understands, but he also understands the pain everyone else has incurred as a result of our imperialistic monetary policy. Things can’t grow exponentially forever.
I think the economy has grown into such a bad situation ever since the federal reserve was created, which lead to us coming off the gold standard that any administration is trapped. If we suffer from deflation, something that we will never accept, we will probably have to endure a depression.
In the long run though, we’d be able to create production and growth, and we could then resume as a great nation. Or we can try to hyperinflate away the debt, but eventually we have to pay it back and start producing goods and services and saving, and eventually set this nation up for a greater fall, and perhaps the greatest depression since the late 1700 american revolution, and potential collapse of the american empire, by as early as 2012. Either way, eventually we have to pay it back and start producing goods and services and saving.
18% of the world lives on $1 per day. 53% of the world lives on $2.00 or less. And rather than find out how we can produce MORE, the government subsidizes farmers, and then limits and restricts how much food each farmer can grow.
If you have food in a refrigerator, clothes in a closet and you sleep on a bed, you are richer than 75% of the population.
Meanwhile, the truth is all the 3rd world countries produce tons of goods on virtually slave labor, then people give them miniscule amounts oof money, then they sell and resell to facturies and resellers, who in turn export it to countries like ours, who can only afford it because the factories
are in business because they borrowed tons of money, while the goverment prints out tons of money for bankers that mismanage money into the ground, and that way people can pay way more for houses than anyone else in the world would pay for shelter, then in turn get out a home equity line of credit to buy 3 pairs of shoes for $50 ( or woman shoes, $200) that were produced for $1.
And of course, the government prints money so that money is worth so much less than it was, and everyone that borrowed money can get higher pay and make higher revenue, and the rest of the world can continue to get screwed. But it can’t go on forever. Eventually people’s capacity to borrow reach their max, and there is not enough credit and money in the system to pay back the debt. For every 100 dollars the federal reserve prints out they expect $103 or so in a year. And the banks take that $100, and expect maybe $106, and the real estate developers expect maybe $115 or more. But eventually the system cannot function, as there are not enough dollars in circulation to collectively pay back all of the debt. The federal reserve doesn’t mind as they can just print more paper, and call it money, and the government continues to go for it, because they know that they are screwing over everyone else.

If not for the dot com boom, the economy probably would have already collapsed, but that sudden craze mania postponed everything, as everyone suddenly rushed out and bought dot com stocks, and borrowed money to start dot com businesses, and suddenly companies rose up and made hundreds of millions, if not billions, and paid employees and CEOs, and they went out and borrowed more and more money to buy houses, and then the housing boom was born, as everyone rushed to get houses, and borrowed money on subprime to buy 2nd, 3rd, and 4th houses on no interest and option arm loans. As the dot com boom went bust, the housing boom continued, but it couldn’t last either, and as people stopped borrowing more, Greenspan’s easy credit couldn’t last and became tough.
Now as homes default, so too will banks, and then the government can continue to try to bail them out, but sometime in the near future, all of this system of credit will have to collapse.
If the population shrinks as the baby boomers retire, move to homes, and die, home values collapse and debt comes down, and there is way way too much debt for everyone as individuals to be able to produce their way out of.
If population continues to grow to have the younder generations pay for the debt, there’s food shortages and inflation skyrockets until people can’t pay for houses, and when that happens, the banks get screwed, and the businesses can’t borrow money to make payroll, and stocks and businesses collapse anyways. If the countries all come out in some global war and destroy both houses, and hundreds of millions of lives, then businesses are demolished, and destroyed, but there’s enough food for everyone if we begin producing again, there’s much less demand, so several companies get wiped out, but at least then we’re in a position to rebuild our way out of it.

Politicians will eventually be forced to make extremely drastic decisions. this time is inevitable ever since we had everyone’s income forced down as people were forced to pay social security, and the government borrowed money for the vietnam war and as a reaction to that Nixon made the decision to go off the gold standard to avoid a depression. Then soon after, Nixon got the boot, and the future collapse was made inevitable.

I love my country, and my lifestyle,and it hurts me to say this but maybe we need to fail economically, and deserve to, as does every major superpowers with federal reserves that instills a central bank and debases a curency. And the central bankers all deserve maximum punishment.

Thomas Jefferson said this about central banks:

“The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. ”

He understood why limited government was needed. We have become so much less limited government and free enterprise dispite whatever people want to try to call it. If call a spade a spade and the US government is a communist facist socialistic empire run by the federal reserve.

Mom poker players rule!

My understanding is that some foreigners immigrated to this great country with the same “nothing” that most of the American-born lazy population is whining about, today… If we all were to work hard and didn’t focus on the gov’t doing it for us (aka: a handout) from those who DO work hard (aka: the $250k+’s)…we’d all be fine.

Here’s a reminder, Obama…some of us who make over 250K do it cause we work at it. We want the freedom to do what we want with the money we make, too.

You talk about capitalism: the infamous Kennedy’s solicited booze during the times of prohibition in order to make their wealth – and hence, some of the most well-known democrats didn’t capitalize any more than the republicans have done…even when illegal, mind-you!

Guess what I’m saying is that if we’re going to believe in the “feel good” we might as well face the facts: Star Magazine, Cribs and MTV are the founders of American past-time stupidity. We focus on nonsense 1/2 the time…and you cannot tell me that the mortgage brokers who made bank over the last few years were all republican.

Financial ignorance and irresponsibility are the reasons why the average American has 15K in cc debt – that’s been going on since Clinton’s time. It’s very popular today with the younger collegians.

And at least we gamblers have a hobby that MAY bring back the winnings from time-to-time. But, the odds of Obama being anything more than a “therapist” to a country who’d rather have someone tell them “it’s all going to be ok” (by a man who’s worked a total of 130 days in the corporate world and considers himself “experienced”) then electing someone else with a plan to induce such fix (rather than “change”) really is slim-to-none.

No, I’m not saying McCain was at all “the one” – but Obama is nothing more than a man of the people w/out a plan from what I can see…I’ll be concentrating on making money while we’re awaiting this “change.”

(Also worth mentioning: I am pleased about the fact that he is the first African American President…it’s nice to see that race doesn’t matter in this country. I wish him the best of luck. Our nation needs to be reminded: work hard, play hard….not just play hard. And never, in the history of mankind, has their been a ruling country without war).

My eyes are open to the future. Sorry, I’m with Rolwon on this one.